First Drive: 2008 Pontiac G6 GXP Coupe

The good news is that on the freeway, the G6 GXP Coupe is a lot less wild. Leave it in D mode, and there's power on demand with smooth and responsive downshifting. The cabin is quiet at 80 mph, only a bit of wind buffeting noticeable through the glass. At wide-open throttle, the 3.6-liter sounds great -- high-strung, vaguely racy as it runs through the gears. In sixth gear, the cabin becomes exceptionally quiet; conversational tones can be taken with all passengers, front and rear. Ride is smooth and well controlled; freeway grooves and expansion joints register only faintly. Headroom is tight, but there's good visibility -- even out and over the rear wing, which leaves the windshield and roof of most trailing cars viewable. Room for the two rear passengers is tight, but as long as you're in front, some serious freeway miles can be logged in this coupe.

As long as you're okay with the seats: Though they're covered in leather and come with seat heaters, they aren't exceptionally comfortable. Even with the lumbar support fully (and manually) cranked, the G6's seats offer little embrace. The lower cushion is worse; what little support there is disappears while cornering. It's a shame, too, because the tilt/telescoping steering wheel allows you to tailor a nice driving position.Now for the bad news: Pull off freeway and take your seemingly sporty GXP up into the canyons for a bit of inspired driving, and things begin to fall apart.

Not literally. The transmission is still intact, but the action goes from buttery smooth to belligerently spasmodic. So solid and refined on the freeway, the manually shiftable six-speed always seems a second behind in the canyons and irritated because of it. The concept is nice, slide a notch down from Drive into Manual mode and the lever automatically slides to the right, so the gears can be toggled sequentially, continentally -- forward for upshift, back for downshift.The problem is changing gears in M-mode is slow when you're driving merely sporty and positively maddening when you're really going for it. The red LCD gear indicator changes as soon as you tap the stick, but the actual cog swap is much slower.

High-rpm off-throttle response is particularly terrible; come off the gas into a turn, high in the rpms, and replant the pedal at exit and you're greeted by...nothing -- then, a jerky, jolting engagement. This means either planning far ahead when cornering or finding a way to corner with the throttle partially engaged throughout the whole turn. Good for left-foot brakers, but not for mere mortals.